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Meet TARS; A Whatsapp based personal assistant

Co-founded by Vinit Agarwal and Ish Jindal, Tars is an on demand service which uses Whatsapp to take users’ requests like Google search, making phone calls and reservations, read through reviews, compare prices, order a Pizza, call for a Plumber, Meaning of any word, etc. TARS, a startup based out of Bangalore, India has created a Whatsapp based personal assistant that will answer all your questions, as long as they are within it’s purview. It is a sort of artificial intelligence program which is partially based on the local agents to work. TARS personal assistant is available to you from 10 AM to 10 PM.

If you are curious of the name TARS – it is the name of a robot in hit Hollywood movie “Interstellar” who helps astronauts in their inter-galactic travels. The website claims, Tars is partially an artificial intelligence that operates with aids from local experts.

WhatsApp has 70 million users in India. There seems to be a big opportunity of business for TARS in near future. Before this, Hike Messenger had also introduced a personal assistant in their app through which user could gather a lot of information about movies, Wikipedia, dictionary, Jokes and a lot of other entertainment things. But TARS is has real humans answering your questions and hence gives much useful results.

How Do You Use Tars?

The process is extremely user-friendly and time saving. All you have to do is, save 9900876785 to your contact and just send a ‘Hello TARS’ message through Whatsapp. Put forth your query and receive the response accordingly, quickly.

It will ask you the relevant information like your mail or address the first time it needs to serve you. After that, TARS knows and remembers who you are. The services are offered throughout the week from 10 AM to 10 PM.

Are its Services Chargeable?

Payment will depend on the kind of service demanded. For query like – “Which are the best dining places in any specific area? Tars would furnish a list of best known restaurants in that locality. Also, it would offer its own suggestions, based on its expertise. Chat services like this, are totally free.

If you want to book a train ticket or order for a product, the service would be chargeable. Tars will take care of the entire process except the transaction. For payment, it will send you a secured payment link powered by Instamojo where you can fill up the details. The booking would be made on your behalf. There won’t be any booking charges or additional/hidden charges, rather it adds relevant coupons too, if applicable.

Currently TARS’s database is updated with Bangalore city only but you can still use it if you live in different city. Agents of TARS use Google search to get the best results for you. It has only been a month that its services have been rolled out. Given the fact that it is a newbie in the market, its back-end services are still at their workshop stage.

As of now the service is free of cost but, in future there is a strong possibility that the service will be paid. If they keep it free, they may charge commissions on orders placed through TARS. We will see…